


White

by LittleTurtle95



Series: “Lost Book of the White” Countdown Event [10]
Category: The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, Heart-to-Heart, Immortal Magnus Bane, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Memories, Mortal Alec Lightwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26212324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleTurtle95/pseuds/LittleTurtle95
Summary: Lost book of the White countdown eventDay ten: Death“Black for hunting through the nightFor death and mourning the color's white”Alec finds a white hair. Magnus doesn’t take it well.
Relationships: Magnus Bane & Tessa Gray, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: “Lost Book of the White” Countdown Event [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1890529
Comments: 20
Kudos: 82





	White

_“Black for hunting through the night_

**_For death and mourning the color's white_ **

_Gold for a bride in her wedding gown_

_And red to call the enchantment down_

**_White silk when our bodies burn_ **

_Blue banners when the lost return.”_

* * *

He was shaking so much the teaspoon was clinging furiously in the mug as he held it with both hands.

“So,” Tessa asked, trying to keep her voice casual. “You freaked out and thought about coming to me.”

Magnus scoffed. “Well, my first choice was Malcolm Fade but he’s not around anymore, so…”

“Magnus,” the woman said, playing with a lock of brown air. The usual playful glimpse in her eyes was gone now. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want to know…” he said, the last letters of the sentence shaking slightly, “I want to know when it gets easier.”

Tessa fell silent. She sipped quietly her warm tea and waited.

“I’m not going to survive it this time.” Magnus’ words were faint and low but they banged in the silent room like a bullet. 

“Yes, you are,” she said, the tenderness in her voice slowly turning sharp. “You want to know when it becomes easier, right? I was going to say it never does, but it’s not exactly true. Jem makes it easier.”

“Well, you’ll have to wait a lot of time for me to-”

 _“Mina_ makes it easier.”

Magnus had to shut his mouth at that. 

“Will is not… Will is not the worst I had. James, Lucie…”

Magnus squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “I don’t want to hear about it.”

“You came here for me to talk to you and now you’ll listen. What you have… not everybody has that.”

She didn’t say what she meant but she didn’t have to. 

_Your child is going to make it. You’re always going to have him. I had to lose them and you won’t._

Magnus looked at her with his cat eyes stern and steady. He didn’t have to say anything, either.

_But I have two children. One of them is not going to last as long._

“I understand your fears,” Tessa said at last, after a long moment of heartbreaking silence. “I still have them. I still have much to lose. I can tell you this: if you already mourn what you still have like you’ve already lost it then you’re not going to live it like you should. Then it’ll be like already losing it, and you can’t afford that.”

Magnus pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Tessa was caring, and sweet, and calm, but she also was honest to the point of being crude. Pity lies didn’t suit her.

“I know. But sometimes it feels like…”

“It feels like falling,” she said. “You keep falling faster and faster and every breath you take is a breath that brings you closer to the ground and you know it but there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

Magnus took in a sharp breath. “Yes. It feels exactly like that.”

He thought about that morning again. About what made him shatter in a thousand pieces. It had been an innocent thing, really.

_Alec was going out of the training room with Jace and Rafael after an intense training session. Magnus and Max had been with Clary, researching in the library._

_Alec had his arm around Rafael’s shoulders and the other hand pushing Jace lightly._

_Jace’s eyes had widened for a moment, a playful smirk in his eyes and suddenly his hand was on Alec’s head, tearing some hair out._

_“What is this?” he asked, with a playful smirk._

_“Jace, what the hell?”_

_“I can’t believe it, you old man! Is this a white hair?”_

_Alec had huffed and rolled his eyes with an half hearted smile. Magnus didn’t get why he was smiling. There was nothing to smile for._

_A white hair. White. White is a death sentence, every shadowhunter should know that._

_Rafael had grabbed it with a grin and looked at it, holding it up with one hand._

_“It’s so white indeed!” he said, laughing. “Angel dad, you really are an old man, are you?”_

_“Okay, enough teasing now,” Alec had huffed. “This only means I’m wise and you shouldn’t harass me anymore with your nonsense!”_

_“Never!” Jace had shouted, ruffling his hair with a grin, and Magnus couldn’t bear looking at them anymore._

_He turned his head, his heart already clenching, and found Max looking at him like he knew._

_Of course he knew._

The vision blurred in front of his eyes.

“You’re going to make it, Magnus. Just like I did. We all do. If not for anything else, because he wants you to make it.”

Magnus smiled a sad smile. “You endure what is unbearable and you bear it.”

“Yes. For them.”

“What if I can’t?”

“But you can.”

Magnus couldn’t look at her in her clear grey eyes anymore. He didn’t like what he saw in them. The fire in those eyes represented everything she had lost and everything Magnus didn’t want to lose. 

“Have you ever drowned?” he asked finally, dread flowing in his veins like poison.

Tessa tilted her head on the side, confused for the sudden change of the subject. 

“No,” she said carefully. “Have you?”

Magnus made a small nod. “I had. Many years ago I almost drowned in a river, I was a kid at the time. I still remember though,” he said in a whisper, his eyes long lost in the memory. “drowning is not… is not something you just forget, even after four hundred years.”

_“This is the only way for you to be good, this will make you pure. Trust me.”_

“Why are you telling me this?”

Magnus was looking down at the mug in his hands with unfocused eyes. “When you’re underwater and you can’t breathe everything in you starts screaming. You’d do anything to start breathing again, everything else fades, every thought, every feeling. There’s just this furious, primal need for air that screams and screams and screams inside you. You’d set everything on fire to feel air in your lungs again, and either you do - and I did, quite literally - or you die. That’s it. That’s all there is. You set everything on fire or you die. There’s no in between.”

He looked back up at Tessa again. She didn’t say a word, fixing him with her steady eyes, waiting for him to elaborate.

“That’s how I miss him. I miss him like I missed air in my lungs when I was drowning. Every time I think about losing him I have my face in the water all over again and he’s not even gone yet. What will happen once it’s over? Will I die? Will I set everything on fire again?”

Tessa sipped from her mug calmly. “What are you doing here, Magnus?”

“I am drinking tea,” he said, even if it clearly wasn’t true. He hadn’t even tasted it once, his hands too shaky and his stomach too clenched to try. 

“Time is ticking,” she said, “what are you doing here?” 

The second time the question rang in his ears he finally understood. He stood up abruptly, almost making the chair fall behind him. “I’m going home now.”

“You are. And you’re talking about it with him, but only if you want to. If not, you’re only staying with him for as long as you can because every second counts.”

Magnus nodded, but Tessa wasn’t finished.

“One day I’ll call you, and you’ll hold me like you did one hundred years ago. One day you’ll call me and I’ll hold you for as long as you’ll need it and more. But this is not the right time. We still can hold the ones we want and we’re going to do that now.”

She took her phone in her hands and Magnus noticed she was shaking now, too.

“Calling Jem?”

Instead of replying she smiled her smile that made her look like the Cheshire cat.

“I’m sorry if I got you in a bad mood," Magnus whispered.

“You didn’t. You just reminded me of what I have and gave me the opportunity to enjoy it while I can.”

Magnus made a small nod and stepped in the portal he had just conjured. They didn’t waste time in useless goodbyes, they didn’t need to.

On the other side of it Alec stood, busy at the stove trying to flip some pancakes with awful results. 

He had just the time to turn and Magnus was crashing him in a hug, hiding his face in the crook of his neck and breathing him in. Alec’s arms immediately hugged him back without a second thought, helplessly attracted to him like gravity. 

“Wow,” he said, squeezing him tight and giving him a peck on the cheek. “What was that for?”

 _One day Tessa and I will only have each other to hold on to,_ he thought, _but not today. Not yet._

“Nothing,” he lied, because that was his weight to carry, his price to pay, and no one else’s. “Can’t I hug my husband if I please?”

He felt Alec’s lips curve into a smile, still pressed to his head. “Of course you can. Hugging you is one of my favourite things to do.”

“I highly hope so,” Magnus whispered, still without letting go, “because I’m not going to stop any time soon.”

* * *

_Will I die? Will I set everything on fire again?_

**Author's Note:**

> Tomorrow the last one and we'll finally have the book 😭 I can't believe it fam
> 
> \+ Bonus  
> If you want to read how Rafe and Max dealt with their mortality / immortality condition read “The sand in the bottom half of the hour glass”, it’s a fic I wrote a few months ago about it.


End file.
